Department of Art

The mission of the Department of Art is to engage students in the exploration of their individual creative and historical art interests. Our faculty strives to create an environment that fosters a full range of diverse artistic expressions.

In addition, we are committed to providing a global understanding of art through direct experiences with artists, art works and architecture, as well as through the teaching of studio arts, art appreciation and art history.

Leigh Craven earned her BFA in Printmaking from the College of Architecture, Art & Planning at Cornell University, her MFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design, and studied bookbinding with Peter Verheyen. She currently teaches in the department of Art at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts and has been a visiting professor at various other institutions. Her work has been exhibited widely in group and solo exhibitions, earning her numerous honors and awards. She is represented by A.I.R. Gallery in New York City.

Mary Dondero is intrigued by the way that contradictions often define who we are. When she thinks about how complex events shape and define us, she is amused.

Her plan was to become an artist. With the combination of Graphic Design, Photography and Printmaking as her focus of study, she received a BFA in Studio Art from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. The contradiction in her academic career was that in 1980 she earned a Masters in the Arts of Teaching from Rhode Island School of Design - however, teaching Art to children was not her personal life goal.

In 2003, she earned an MFA in Photography from the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. As a full-time faculty member at Bridgewater State University she finds working with university students both enormously rewarding and inspiring. Through a program developed by Bridgewater, she has been teaching photography to middle school children in the summertime which has been a joyful experience but also provided another professional contradiction as her MAT from Rhode Island School of Design is now relevant.

In 2011, Professor Dondero was awarded "Artist in Resident" at Zion National Park in Utah. The park's environments include a limestone canyon that was a great river thousands of years ago and the painted desert that was once an inland sea. This residency granted secluded time and space to focus on her artwork in a place rich with geological formations reminiscent of the ocean, inspiring new visual language for her work.

Professor Dondero exhibits her work both nationally and internationally and, in 2005, she presented her photo-installation, 'Dust' at the Southeast Society of Photographic Educators Conference. Her work is held in several collections, such as the permanent collection of Naestved International Print Studio in Denmark, the Zion Human History Museum in Utah and the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion in New Hampshire. Her photo-ceramic installation that she created for the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion was mentioned in the respected international publication "Ceramics, Art and Perception."

Professor Dondero's studio is located in Warren, Rhode Island, where she is one of the founding members and current President of the Executive Committee for the now ten-year-old, non-profit organization, Imago Foundation for the Arts. For the past two years she has served on the Board of Directors for the Bristol Art Museum where she is Chair of Exhibitions.

When she was young Mary's family moved from Brooklyn, New York to rural Massachusetts. Often, she finds herself yearning for life in the city. This is probably caused by the many childhood memories that she continues to embrace. Ironically, she finds herself living in the woods of Rehoboth, Massachusetts contemplating her next project.

Degrees

BFA, Roger Williams UniversityMAT, Rhode Island School of DesignMFA in Photography, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth

Associate Professor Ivana George is an interdisciplinary artist who has created artworks in photography, installation, sound, and video. She has exhibited her work in over 50 national and international exhibitions including Harvard University, Griffin Museum of Photography, and the Danforth Museum. She holds an MFA degree from the joint program of The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University. Her work has been written about in the Boston Globe, New England's Bay Windows, the Las Vegas Sun, and Atlanta's Creative Loafing.

Professor George teaches all levels of analog and digital photography in the art department. Her areas of special interest include lighting skills for fine art and commercial photography, large format analog photography, historic analog processes and mixed media approaches to photography. In addition to teaching classes, she enjoys mentoring students through advising, internships, and undergraduate research/creative projects.

John Hooker's professional work is primarily in the field of sculpture. His artwork has been exhibited throughout the U.S. in group and solo exhibitions. His studio interests include scale, material and process as they relate to the figure. Professor Hooker teaches courses in studio foundations, sculpture and first-year writing. Additionally, he teaches art education, supervises student teachers and advises students interested in pursuing careers in teaching art. Professor Hooker serves as the coordinator of the Master of Arts in Teaching in Creative Arts. He has led multiple study tours to Tanzania and New Zealand.

Dr. Shirland received his MA and PhD in Art History from University College London. His doctoral work examined constructions of masculinity in British art c.1880-1914. Among his publications are articles in the journals Art History, Visual Culture in Britain, and Aries. He has taught at the University of York and Lasell College, and served as the curator of Public Programs at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. He is also visual arts director and lead curator for the project Violence Transformed. Current research interests include the art of Thomas Sidney Cooper; protest and resistance art in South Africa; and contemporary art in Tanzania, together with his ongoing research into James Whistler, Walter Sickert and Wyndham Lewis.

Dr. Shirland regularly teaches the classes ARTH309 Early Modern Art and Architecture; ARTH310 Art and Architecture since 1940; ARTH308 Women in the Visual Arts; ARTH207 Introduction to African Art; and ARTH299 Transforming Violence. He also leads a three-week art history study tour to Tanzania.

Degrees

BA, University of YorkMA, University College LondonPhD, University College London, Art History

Donald Tarallo

Associate Professor of Art

Art Building, Room 212

Tel:

508.531.2129

Email: donald.tarallo@bridgew.edu

Donald Tarallo has his BA in Studio Arts and Graphic Design from Clark University, his MFA in Graphic Design from Rhode Island School of Design, and he studied typography with Wolfgang Weingart in the "Weiterbildungsklasse" at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. During his graduate studies at the Rhode Island School of Design he was a research assistant on the Universal Web Design Project where he helped develop web accessibility guidelines for graphic designers.

Since 1998, Don has maintained a freelance practice working on projects in identity, publication, and web design. He has worked as an art director and photographer in Oslo, Norway, and as an identity designer at Interbrand in Seoul, Korea. His passion for typography and identity design has allowed him to work on the development of the visual identities for Sotheby's, Icograda, and the Hong Kong Design Institute. Since 2003, Don has been the design consultant for Community MusicWorks in Providence, Rhode Island; one of the top fifty after school arts programs in the United States.

Don is a recipient of a Marion and Jasper Whiting Fellowship for research on the history of typography in Italy. He has received design awards by the American Institute for Graphic Arts and the Graphic Communications Industry of Rhode Island. His work and essays have been published in China, Korea, Japan, and the United States in journals such as Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, Visual Communication Quarterly, and the Korean Design Research Institute's Good Design and Bad Design. He is a member of the International Council of Communication Design (ICOGRADA) and the Society of Typographic Aficionados (SoTA). He has taught graphic design at Clark University, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art (China), Rhode Island School of Design, Siena Art Institute (Italy), and the Samsung Art and Design Institute (South Korea).

Stephen F. Smalley graduated from Massachusetts College of Art, State College at Boston and The Pennsylvania State University. Joining the art faculty at Bridgewater State University in 1972, he served as department chair 1972-1984 and retired from full-time teaching in 2005. As professor emeritus and visiting lecturer, he continues to offer honors art history colloquia, which often focus on topics such as graffiti, art of the tattoo, Pop art, Andy Warhol & Jackson Pollock. Other teaching positions were with the Cambridge Public Schools, Pennsylvania State University, Tyler School of Art/Temple University, Massachusetts College of Art and the American College in Paris.

His ongoing Henry VIII series focuses on the legendary British monarch and attempts to playfully re-invent Hans Holbein's protrait of a pivotal figure in England's history. Smalley has visited London and the United Kingdom numerous times over the years, conducting art history study tours to London, and served as a faculty associate in the Bridgewater State University Program at Oxford.

Part-time Faculty

Mary Beth Alger

Email: malger@bridgew.edu

Timothy Bailey

Email: T1Bailey@bridgew.edu

Margaret Bellafiore

Email: mbellafiore@bridgew.edu

Susan Blevins

Email: susan.blevins@bridgew.edu

George Born

Email: george.born@bridgew.edu

Lori Bradley

Email: lori.bradley@bridgew.edu

Sean Cassidy

Email: sean.cassidy@bridgew.edu

Miacheal Cochran

Email: michael.cochran@bridgew.edu

Ryan Collins

Email: ryan.collins@bridgew.edu

Mark Eshbaugh

Email: mark.eshbaugh@bridgew.edu

Jonathan Glatt

Email: jonathan.glatt@bridgew.edu

Teresa Hunter

Email: teresa.hunter@bridgew.edu

Maura Huntington

Email: maura.huntington@bridgew.edu

Mark Laughlin

Email: mark.laughlin@bridgew.edu

Amity Law

Email: amity.law@bridgew.edu

Jan Lhormer

Email: jan.lhormer@bridgew.edu

Debra Marek

Email: debra.marek@bridgew.edu

Joan Mullen

Email: joan.mullen@bridgew.edu

Madeline Medeiros Ruiz

Email: madeline.ruiz@bridgew.edu

Renee Russo

Email: rrusso@bridgew.edu

Jason Travers

Email: jason.travers@bridgew.edu

Angel Tucker

Email: angelica.tucker@bridgew.edu

Dina Vincent

Email: dina.vincent@bridgew.edu

Gayle White

Email: gwhite@bridgew.edu

Staff

Kathi Brazil

Administrative Assistant I

Art Building, Room 100

Tel:

508.531.1359

Email: kathi.brazil@bridgew.edu

Linda Hall

Staff Assistant

Art Building, Room 206

Tel:

508.531.2629

Email: lhall@bridgew.edu

Department Chairperson

Rob Lorenson

Tel:

508.531.2214

Administrative Assistant

Kathi Brazil

Tel:

508.531.1359

Graduate Coordinator

John Hooker

Tel:

508.531.1484

The department offers a BA in art with seven different possible concentrations, including art history, graphic design and new media. We also offer an MA in teaching, and we serve non-art majors at Bridgewater through our extensive core curriculum offerings.

Studio enrollments are kept low to promote a sense of community and positive classroom dynamics. This encourages strong one-on-one student-teacher relationships, leading to an in-depth understanding and development of techniques, skills and individual style. The department contributes to the cultural richness and artistic vitality of our region and our state by training knowledgeable artists, art historians, teachers and other professionals.